Just crossing the year anniversary since we purchased our sprinter I figured it was time to start a build thread and share a bit of how we built it.
This was the first online van purchase, ordered from MB of Gilbert and had it shipped up to the Seattle Area. The purchase was okay, communication was meh but got the van I wanted at a good price. Still dealing with a missing Key a year later but think that's finally almost resolved.
We picked up a left over 2020 144 High room crew with the gas engine. I've had 6 Vanagons / Buses over the years so I know what we wanted for the build. We started off looking at the Metris with the peace vans conversion and pretty quickly decided that would be too small now that we have a family and occasionally need to seat 5 plus the dog. We really wanted an AWD transit but could only find med roofs at that time and it was just too low for our use wanting to be able to fit mountain bikes under the bed. 4WD sprinter were out of our price range, and I figured we put about 100K on our last 2WD Westy and only got stuck once and that was at a muddy music festival. We choose the gas motor as we don't drive a ton and while this will mostly be used for quick 2-3 night trips with a few longer ones per year. The van will sometimes be used for short trips and may go stretches without highway use, I also have a friend that is a MB tech that has a lot of experience with the engine so figured after warranty I've have some help if needed. So far at 11K I love the motor, plenty of power crossing many mountain passes and okay milage @ 17-21mpg it's a little better than my tacoma.
For the build we wanted a modular weekender, capable of hauling bikes, snowboards, Home Depot runs, some work stuff mostly rolls of fabric, kids, dogs, grand parents ect, it needed to be able to tow a light boat, and fit in a city parking spot. What we loved about our Westies was that it was always packed ready to go just add food and clothes an off you go, so that's what we wanted. We usually cook outside, so no need for a kitchen but a has to be very organized. We liked the builds that Cardiff Camper vans builds using as much of the stock interior as possible so we started using their template, stock headliner, fully insulated and sound deadened, simple electrical system with DC2DC charger with solar, Webasto gas heater, max air fan, Adventure Wagon Moab bed, swivel seats, building some wall panels and adding some horizontal L track, one venting window crew window, some curtains, a headliner shelf, cab bunk for the kiddo, and added some Terrawagon front window vents for added ventilation and an awning. Let's call this phase one, we figured this is good enough to do our first big trip, WA>VT and visiting friends and family across the country, less of a camping trip and more a road trip with some camping mixed in.
Since so much of this is standard meat and potatoes sprinter build stuff, I'm just going to drop in some photos of the standard build stuff and then go into a bit more detail on the items I struggled with like the electrical system, a gas powered heater, L track in a stock headliner and dealing with the seating in later posts.
This was the first online van purchase, ordered from MB of Gilbert and had it shipped up to the Seattle Area. The purchase was okay, communication was meh but got the van I wanted at a good price. Still dealing with a missing Key a year later but think that's finally almost resolved.
We picked up a left over 2020 144 High room crew with the gas engine. I've had 6 Vanagons / Buses over the years so I know what we wanted for the build. We started off looking at the Metris with the peace vans conversion and pretty quickly decided that would be too small now that we have a family and occasionally need to seat 5 plus the dog. We really wanted an AWD transit but could only find med roofs at that time and it was just too low for our use wanting to be able to fit mountain bikes under the bed. 4WD sprinter were out of our price range, and I figured we put about 100K on our last 2WD Westy and only got stuck once and that was at a muddy music festival. We choose the gas motor as we don't drive a ton and while this will mostly be used for quick 2-3 night trips with a few longer ones per year. The van will sometimes be used for short trips and may go stretches without highway use, I also have a friend that is a MB tech that has a lot of experience with the engine so figured after warranty I've have some help if needed. So far at 11K I love the motor, plenty of power crossing many mountain passes and okay milage @ 17-21mpg it's a little better than my tacoma.
For the build we wanted a modular weekender, capable of hauling bikes, snowboards, Home Depot runs, some work stuff mostly rolls of fabric, kids, dogs, grand parents ect, it needed to be able to tow a light boat, and fit in a city parking spot. What we loved about our Westies was that it was always packed ready to go just add food and clothes an off you go, so that's what we wanted. We usually cook outside, so no need for a kitchen but a has to be very organized. We liked the builds that Cardiff Camper vans builds using as much of the stock interior as possible so we started using their template, stock headliner, fully insulated and sound deadened, simple electrical system with DC2DC charger with solar, Webasto gas heater, max air fan, Adventure Wagon Moab bed, swivel seats, building some wall panels and adding some horizontal L track, one venting window crew window, some curtains, a headliner shelf, cab bunk for the kiddo, and added some Terrawagon front window vents for added ventilation and an awning. Let's call this phase one, we figured this is good enough to do our first big trip, WA>VT and visiting friends and family across the country, less of a camping trip and more a road trip with some camping mixed in.
Since so much of this is standard meat and potatoes sprinter build stuff, I'm just going to drop in some photos of the standard build stuff and then go into a bit more detail on the items I struggled with like the electrical system, a gas powered heater, L track in a stock headliner and dealing with the seating in later posts.
